


i melt with you

by smallcuts



Series: two sides of the same coin [3]
Category: American Housewife (TV)
Genre: Awkward Crush, Boys In Love, Canon Divergence, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Practice Kissing, Season/Series 03, although i think i stole some scenes/lines from later episodes, but that's the official timeline, timeline is between s305 and s3e13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 11:54:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28991769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallcuts/pseuds/smallcuts
Summary: It’s odd, Oliver thinks as Cooper rests a languid arm on the top half of the couch, not quite touching Oliver’s shoulders but close enough to radiate body heat. It’s odd how perfectly Cooper fits into the daily Otto hustle and bustle, filling in the blanks of Oliver’s otherwise stressed and checkered existence.-Oliver's complicated relationship with Cooper told through a series of vignettes.
Relationships: Cooper Bradford/Oliver Otto, Oliver Otto/Gina Tuscadero
Series: two sides of the same coin [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2028349
Comments: 13
Kudos: 41





	i melt with you

**Author's Note:**

> cheers to the five people in the american housewife fandom who might read this, love you all. cooliver supremacy<3
> 
> ALSO this is meant to take place directly after the events of the last two fics in this series so i'd recommend reading one of the two before reading this! you don't have to read both as they're the same story from a different pov but like i said, i'd recommend doing so lol

Halloween happens to fall on a clear night this year, which means that the streets of Westport are gradually overtaken by younger and older kids alike the longer the sun wanes. There are sure to be tons of frazzled, overworked nannies chasing after the kids they were supposed to keep an eye on, not a second thought in the typical Westport parent’s mind as they sip the night away via chardonnay. By the time the sky has darkened to a muted indigo, Oliver concludes himself as nearly ready to go to tonight’s Halloween party. He’s currently missing his blonde wig though, which he could have _sworn_ he’d deposited earlier on top of his bed.

Cooper hums a tune Oliver doesn’t recognize under his breath as he smooths his pale green shirt down for the fifth time. Oliver’s fingers twitch at his sides; He turns away and crouches to take a gander under his bed. His missing blonde wig leers back at him as if mocking him for being idiotic enough to waste five minutes of his life tearing apart the top half of his bed in search of it. With a scoff, he snatches it and dusts it off, inspecting the item for any dog hairs that could have clung to it.

Oliver’s phone pings with a notification as he’s adjusting his wig in the mirror to mask any stray brown flyaways. “Cooper, can you text whoever that is back?”

Cooper obliges and unlocks Oliver’s phone, tapping out a quick response before returning it to its previous resting place adjacent to his Scooby-Doo plush.

“Gina said they’re going to be there in five.”

Oliver frowns at his reflection before turning around and tugging Cooper’s arm lightly. “Let’s go then, I don’t want to be too late.”

“Hold on,” says Cooper. He runs the pad of his thumb over a small wisp of brown hair, tucking it under the mesh wiring of his wig. “Good to go.”

Oliver can’t look at himself or Cooper. A limp arm drops back to his side as he trudges through the hallway and down the staircase, ignoring as much of his overbearing mother in the kitchen as he can manage to. Cooper, always the more pleasant one of the duo, lapses into an easy rapport with Katie about their activities for the night. His phone buzzes insistently in his hand, likely a missed call from Gina that he doesn’t want to answer; He’s more concerned with getting them both out the door at the moment. All he has to do is wait patiently for an opening.

“There was actually this one time I took one of our smaller jets to Bellavue-”

The razor-sharp, warning glint to his mother’s eyes tells him all he needs to know. After years of practice subverting that glare either to his siblings or to the power of long-winded explanations, he expertly interrupts Cooper’s story with a rushed goodbye, practically body-slamming Cooper out the front door.

“Come on dude, they’re waiting for us,” Oliver complains.

*

Once they arrive at the party, Oliver is immediately assaulted with flashy Halloween lights strung across the expanse of the house and the multitude of bodies congregated on the front lawn and inside. A realistic scarecrow looms over the mailbox, just one artfully placed decoration out of the hundreds Oliver reckons are dispersed throughout the property. If he had to put a number to it, he’d say the homeowners sunk about $10,000 easily in decorations; Party planning must’ve skyrocketed that estimate through the roof. He wonders what it’s like to have that much in disposable income—would he grow up to be the type of person to give that much of a shit about holidays?

“Oliver!” shouts Gina as she greets him with an enthusiastic kiss. “You’re just in time! Let’s dance.”

Oliver allows himself to be dragged inside, sending a last parting glance over his shoulder at Cooper, who doesn’t meet his eyes. The taller boy slips a hesitant hand into Adriana’s, and he watches as she coos at the Scooby-Doo plush propped on his shoulder.

“That kind of hurts,” comments Gina as she withdraws her hand from Oliver’s vice grip. She’s still smiling at him expectantly, so he lets out an inaudible sigh of relief. He allows her to take the lead for the majority of the songs they dance to, whirling around their carved-out corner of the room and admiring how Gina mouths along to the songs. A genuine smile tugs at the corner of his lips—he almost gives in to the cheesy Halloween music blaring from the speaker when he spots two familiar, missing members of their Mystery Inc. gang by the snack table.

Cooper has his head ducked low, a confident hand encircled around Adriana’s waist. They sway every so often to the beat, seemingly entrenched in their own world. Something white-hot flashes before his vision, reeling and sudden. Gina doesn’t notice, continuing to swing her hips and hop around. She almost bumps into a girl dressed as an angel but pays her no mind, content in having the time of her life with her boyfriend.

He shifts his gaze back to Gina, although he remains aware of Cooper’s every little movement out of the corner of his eye. A shared punch glass. Cooper bowing after the song reaches its conclusion, Adriana’s eyes lighting up in mirth as she playfully curtsies back. He couldn’t tell for certain but he swears the lights are a bit brighter than they were at the beginning of the night, a bit more searing to the skin than he’d prefer.

Cooper eventually catches him gaping at them, arching a perfectly plucked eyebrow at him. Oliver tilts his head curiously at him in response, shrugging his shoulders as if to ask what was up with him.

“I’m a little tired, down for some snacks?” Gina asks sweetly. She does appear disheveled, her green scarf undone and purple dress bunching at the sleeves. A bead of sweat trickles steadily down her face as she and Oliver wave at Cooper and Adriana. “Haven’t seen you guys for a while!”

Oliver busies himself with assembling a small plate of food to share while Gina talks to the other couple they’re here with, although Cooper stays uncharacteristically silent. He chews a piece of candy slowly, tries to keep his attention on Gina’s arms as she reenacts one of the crazier dance moves she’d performed—he would have succeeded too, had he been able to take his attention off of Cooper. The other boy doesn’t indicate that he notices Oliver’s inability to immerse himself in Gina’s storytelling, merely boredly picking at a loose string on the collar of his shirt. His fingers ache to touch-

An ear-splitting scream suddenly echoes throughout the house, eliciting a series of shocked reactions from the room of partygoers. Everyone immediately rushes and trips over each other to the source of the action—Vivian, eyebrows scrunched in pain as she heaves and staggers to the table closest in her vicinity. It sinks in immediately that she’s going into labor; What an unfortunate birth date for the child, he’s always felt sorry for holiday-born babies.

Whatever remnants of childhood he had left lingering in his subconscious instantly vanishes the minute he and the rest of the party in the cramped room witness her water break. His mother, in all her demented glory, chooses that moment to assist Vivian—normally, he’d applaud her for stepping up to the plate before anyone else had the chance. However, all he wishes to do right now is scrub his memory with bleach, the image of Vivian howling as her water broke painted entirely too vividly across his frontal lobe.

The rest of Halloween night passes in an unfocused blur—Oliver had had an arduous time relocating his grip on reality after watching his mother ignite doctor mode—and he stops short outside of the door to his house, fingers curled around a tiny Scooby-Doo plush he doesn’t recall taking from Cooper.

“You know what I just realized?” asks Cooper out of the blue. He hums to let Cooper know he’s listening as he searches his front pockets fruitlessly for his keys. “We practiced for nothing!”

Oliver doesn’t appreciate how Cooper laughs—the implication that they didn’t _need_ to practice distresses him for reasons he would like to avoid contemplating. If they truly had practiced for no reason, does that mean Cooper is entirely done with that section of their relationship? He could distinctly recollect Cooper being the one to suggest they carry on practice kissing and presumably more beyond that together, had he really changed his mind that rapidly? Oliver frowns involuntarily ~~(It only took a day for Adriana to replace him)~~. He jots down to himself not to initiate anything first, to pass Cooper the reigns.

“I don’t know, you’re a good kisser. I’d say I still learned something,” replies Oliver as coolly as he can handle. The key clicks into place as he carefully nudges the door open, cringing as the bolts disrupt the blanket of silence over the Otto household. Cooper stays confusingly nonvocal, so he turns around only to face his (extraordinary) best friend fixing him with a slack-jawed stare.

For a second, just a split second, he mulls over leaning in for a good night kiss. No socially acceptable excuses for doing so could be located in his mind—he instead banishes his observation of the crescent moon’s rays haloed around the sheen of Cooper’s golden eyes to the further recesses of his mind, electing to take a step indoors. One kiss isn’t worth breaking his newly established mental promise not to begin anything first. Cooper lingers behind him, all lopsided smiles and bright eyes as they exchange goodbyes. The other boy departs with a fleeting glance at Oliver’s lips, skulking off into his helicopter. Oliver plants himself in the doorway for a lengthy while, searching the murky skyline well after Cooper is long gone.

-

As October plunges headfirst into November and the warm, amber-hued leaves release tree branches from their clutches, Oliver bides his time preparing for the big ballet audition on his horizon. He rehearses behind a locked bedroom door, reminding himself whenever his thighs start to hurt from long periods of toil that Harvard is on the line. Each misstep or arm wobble is a leap back from the meticulously planned future he crafted for himself (and Cooper, if he so cares to admit), and he doesn’t care about the extent he has to exert himself; Failure isn’t an option. Shipping himself off to boarding school is merely the cherry on top of his outstanding resume in progress, and armed with the knowledge that Cooper can pay him a visit whenever he chooses, he feels temporarily invincible.

Oliver pauses to take a swig from his water bottle and wipe the layer of sweat that had accumulated underneath his hairline away, sighing to himself. The classical playlist he’d switched on earlier had been pleasant at first with its soft, nostalgia-drenched piano riffs and orchestral crescendos but it’s become grating to his ears four hours later. His phone buzzes—he grumbles silently before unlocking it to a text from Gina, informing him of her anxiety over the girls’ ballet scholarship she was trying out for. He’s surprised she even texted at all initially—They’d been subtly drifting apart since Halloween, or more accurately since Andrew Vandevorde had personally enrolled in Oliver’s ballet class to ruin his life. The worst part of it all is that he can hardly bring himself to be jealous, not when he harkens back to the inevitable guilty thoughts about his best friend he refuses to delve into when he’s alone.

Apprehension sparks deep in his stomach; He’s been contemplating what he was getting himself into since he had announced his desire to nail the boys’ audition and Gina had proudly declared that she’d be winning the girls’ audition as well—she expects them to arrive at boarding school together. He imagines what it will be like in Deervale with her at his side instead of Cooper, if lunch would be the same without one of Cooper’s rich privilege fueled tirades to complement his lackluster meal or if Gina would give him outfit approvals as meticulously as Cooper does—he can already envision her mocking him in his head—so thoughtfully. If Gina will look at him the way Cooper does sometimes when he thinks Oliver’s preoccupied with other matters, with that subdued but gentle smile Cooper adopts every time he does inked permanently in his memory. Cooper can fly to Deervale as often as he wants; The question he frets over more often than not is whether or not Cooper will actually make an appearance.

He shakes his head, powers off his speaker, and carries on with his nightly routine, though he knows sleep will elude him for hours.

-

One day, while Cooper and Oliver are lost in a discussion over whether or not Red Dead Redemption 2 deserved the hype it got (spoiler alert to Cooper: it _absolutely_ does), an unusual sight awaits the boys at Cooper’s locker. They’ve formed an unofficial habit of making a pitstop there first so Cooper could give himself a quick once-over before class and since it’s close in proximity to Oliver’s own locker, it’s a win-win situation, but today Adriana blocks their path. Gina is leaned up against some random kid’s locker beside her, nose buried in a class notebook.

“Hey Cooper,” says Adriana sweetly. The way she’s twirling her hair, staring up at Cooper with honest to god stars in her eyes stokes the familiar beginnings of a migraine at the base of Oliver’s cranium. “I figured you’d be too chickenshit, so I’m here to ask when you’re going to take me out.” Swagger bleeds from her in excess, Oliver observes. Why would she automatically assume Cooper is into her anyway?

_‘You don’t know him like I do.’_

As soon as he finishes that sentence mentally, he digs his fingernails into his palm so deeply he’d be impressed if he wasn’t bleeding. He has zero agency over Cooper’s decisions; Adriana probably does know him like Oliver does if Halloween held any merit to it. And Gina is _standing right there_.

“Ah, well, actually…” Cooper starts, biting down harshly on his lip mid-sentence as his eyes dart wildly around the hallway, anywhere but Adriana. Oliver and Adriana hang onto his every word, though Oliver tries to downplay himself by approaching Gina and looping an arm over her shoulders. She doesn’t acknowledge his presence; She must have an exam of paramount importance coming up soon if she can’t even say hello. “I think you’re cool but I’m not looking to be with anybody right now. The Bradford mobile paseos en, uh, whatever the Spanish word for solo is.”

Oliver processes Cooper’s rejection sluggishly, digesting each word one at a time in his mind with a heightening sense of disappointment. He ignores Adriana’s indignant reply, opting instead to nod at Cooper and walk Gina to class. While they traverse the mostly empty hallway, Oliver is terrified to note that the horrid feeling of disappointment doesn’t leave him alone; It’s only exacerbated with every repeat of _‘but I’m not looking to be with anybody right now’_ said so nonchalantly rattling endlessly in his skull.

Those words shouldn’t make him feel so shitty. Except they really, _really_ do.

Oliver leaves without kissing Gina at all (not that he suspects she minds), consumed with guilt well into third period. The ever-present knot in his chest only loosens once he’s picked up by his mother after the last bell of the day had indicated the students’ departure, Cooper clambering into the car behind him.

“Cooper! You’re coming home with us!” Katie gushes in that tone she uses when she’s dealing with plastic Westport moms, voice dripping with half-concealed disdain behind her strained smile.

“¡Buenos días señorita Otto! Oliver and I are doing homework today.” Cooper grins as Oliver rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, sure…” she gives them both the patented all-knowing Mom Glare reserved usually for Taylor and Trip. “Keep your door open or I swear to God, I will-”

“Okay, okay,” Oliver interrupts sharply, dragging his fingers across his throat to communicate the universal _‘cut that shit out’_ gesture to Cooper. He evidently gets the memo, slowly drawing his phone from his pocket in bewilderment. The rest of Katie’s attempts at engaging them in conversation fall on deaf ears as Cooper props his phone up between both of them, taps on the TikTok app icon, and hands him an airpod, which Oliver gratefully accepts.

The minute Katie puts her sorry excuse for a car in park, Oliver kicks and shoves at Cooper to remove him from the car as fast as he possibly could before his mother could continue badgering them in her _‘I’m trying to be helpful but also looking for future blackmail’_ manner. Somehow, he gets the feeling that she’s not going to abandon that cruise she’s repeatedly “subtly mentioning” (in her own words) and he doesn’t want to have Cooper sit through that mortifying ordeal. He’s not a _monster_.

“Dude,” Oliver starts as he barges through his bedroom door, shedding his backpack to the floor, “you have got to quit encouraging that woman.”

“How can I? She’s _muy_ caliente,” Cooper smirks as he shuts the door behind him anyway, house rules be damned, tossing his satchel on top of Oliver’s bag. “So…”

Oliver barely has a moment to breathe before Cooper invades his space in the blink of an eye, warm breath intermingling with his.

He considers pulling away. And then he considers the ramifications of not pulling away. Clearly, common sense has taken a backseat to his life today and he’s not sure how he feels about that.

Cooper maneuvers them over to Oliver’s bed, keeping a steady hand on his waist. Scratch what he thought about not being sure how to feel; He’s certainly feeling great right now, and that’s what matters. Unfortunately, breathing is necessary to stay alive, so he reluctantly cuts the kiss short.

“What was that for?” He asks, wiping the dumb grin off his face once Cooper meets his eyes.

“I don’t know, I just wanted to.” A pause. “To practice, I mean, um. Sorry, I didn’t ask.”

Sometimes, Oliver hates how transparent his best friend is. It’s hard to deny Cooper anything when he has such an innocent air to him, a defined naivete that coats his very existence. Or at least that’s what he tells himself as he responds “you didn’t have to” lowly. If he messes this opportunity up now, he wouldn’t forgive himself.

The air grows thick with how heavy they’re breathing and the staleness of teenage boy odor that permeates his room no matter the number of times Katie sprays it down. Somehow, Oliver’s hand embarks toward Cooper’s hair without his remembrance (though now that he’s noticed, he doesn’t know how to write that gesture off, considering Gina has long hair). If Cooper minds, he doesn’t confirm so.

What sets off a piercing alarm in his head is when Cooper tries licking his lips the same way he did the last (and first) time they practiced together; He’s never done anything beyond closed-mouth stuff. For a moment, he thinks he should put an end to the peculiar situation but deep down, not unfamiliar to him at this point, that’s the last thing in the world he wants to do.

He reminds himself it’s practice for when he kisses Gina like this in the future and blows her mind with his sure-to-be developed technique. It sounds like utter bullshit even to himself but Cooper doesn’t know that Oliver reads between the lines, assumes there’s something there in a sea of uncertainty. They really should establish boundaries, he thinks distantly as he obediently parts his lips.

Cooper’s tongue isn’t as gross as he expected it to be. It’s a bizarre, but certainly not unwelcome sensation; The only downside is that he has no idea what his next course of action is from here. Should he be doing something with his own tongue? He doesn’t get a chance to do much of anything short of inhaling through his nose sharply when Cooper gently breaks the kiss, pupils blown.

“You do know that if someone’s kissing you, you should kiss back, right?” teases Cooper. Oliver purses his lips and scoots backward, refusing to dignify Cooper with eye contact. He’ll be damned- no, he’ll begin supporting the disgusting notion of communism before he ever admits to Cooper that he has no clue what to do. While he’s on the topic though, how does Cooper seem so… experienced? Like this isn’t the first time the other male has done anything like this.

“First of all, shut the fuck up,” Oliver raises an accusatory finger at him, to which Cooper replies with a wounded “you shut up!”

“Second of all, how do you know how to do all of this? You had a girlfriend you never told me about?”

To his surprise, Cooper’s entire demeanor transitions into something more demure, a salient contrast to the easygoing Cooper of ten seconds ago. Consider his interest piqued.

“No secret girlfriend, amigo,” Cooper pipes up after what felt like an eternity of bated breath. “But something like that.”

His admission leaves Oliver speechless; He had previously been under the impression that he knew of all of the inner machinations of Cooper’s private life but perhaps Cooper isn’t as open of a book as he perceived him to be. He would’ve questioned the other boy more extensively about the topic had Cooper not waved the entire subject of conversation away in favor of engaging him in another kiss. It’s a distraction, plain and simple. Oliver is aware of that fact but he lets it slide, forgoing the curious side of him temporarily in order to tilt his head at an easier angle for Cooper’s convenience.

They create a tentative rhythm between them once Oliver gets a better grasp on what to do with his tongue in Cooper’s mouth (apparently he enjoys letting Oliver lead if the small groans littering the atmosphere are anything to judge by. He abashedly files that information away). He summons the paltry quantity of courage left in him—for someone who wants to be a cutthroat businessman, he sure has been having a hard time asking for what he wants, not that he’ll admit that he doesn’t know what he’s searching for anyway—and settles a shaky hand on Cooper’s knee.

Cooper, shockingly, smiles against his lips as he leans back, eyes lethargically fluttering open. His expression doesn’t waver as he clambers into Oliver’s lap (so it’s gonna be like _that_ then), gently smoothing down the uneven creases of Oliver’s button-up shirt as he continues smiling at him. His throat dries as he swallows a sandpaper-esque gob of spit; Every action they have undertaken so far has him feeling more and more starkly aware of the fact that they are teetering very dangerously between the lines of friendship and something… beyond that. Something he doesn’t desire to give the satisfaction of a name to. Even if they are practicing, Oliver feels as though they’re huddled, locked behind that label. He may not have experience with this type of situation (friends with benefits, he thinks may be the more appropriate term for him and Cooper right now) but he’s not moronic. Friends _really_ shouldn’t kiss each other so tenderly, and sit in their laps, and fist his shirt, and.

He blinks in shock when Cooper twirls a strand of brown hair around his pointer finger, tucking it behind his ear. It transports him back to Halloween when Cooper preened him prior to their departure for the party. He thinks further back to when they had kissed for the first time, and Cooper had cupped his jaw in the same manner he’s doing right now, and how both times have a petrifying fact in common; He’s deriving far more pleasure from this arrangement than Cooper. Cooper, who Oliver … never bothered to analyze. What could he possibly have to gain from practice with Oliver if all he’s done is guide him?

The words _‘but I’m not looking to be with anybody right now’_ echo painfully through his head as Cooper falls back into him, a bit more desperately than anticipated. It’s only natural to want to sustain his sense of level-headedness in a situation as wild as this one, and he thinks he’s done a decent job of matching Cooper’s unnervingly calm demeanor thus far. Then again, he’s growing tired of feigning nonchalance; Spencer told him once to spare no expense in the pursuit of pleasure. The billionaire meant it in a material sense but Oliver’s choosing to interpret his guidance differently. Carve his own path to success and whatnot.

It could have been minutes, it could have been hours of Cooper’s warm mouth pressed to his, of quivering hands and teeth clacking together—Oliver couldn’t tell the difference. If there was anything consistent to factor in about this afternoon though, it’s that time stops for no one, no matter how much he doesn’t want to bid their practice session adieu.

Cooper calls it quits first when he rolls off of Oliver, standing up and shaking his head to rid himself of the tangles Oliver must have given him. He imparts a transient, pained grimace at Oliver before gesturing vaguely at their forgotten bookbags.

“Maybe we should do some homework, amigo.”

Cooper never does his homework. He has hired help for that, or so Oliver assumes. He stifles his suspicions and shrugs, crossing the room so he could sit at his desk. “What subject were you thinking, dude?”

“What classes are we taking again?”

“Science it is,” he remarks, retrieving his notebook and pencil case from his backpack. As he flips through the pages to locate the unit he’d learned about today, Oliver wonders where Cooper had drawn the line, what made him decide to curtly hit the brake. It had taken him nearly seventy percent of the time spent macking on the other boy to finally accept that he may _possibly_ enjoy kissing Cooper more than he does kissing Gina. He’s had an extended preview of a film cut short.

Actually, it’s a bigger problem than he cares to tackle, the whole murky interweaving of Gina and Cooper in Oliver’s life. He can’t talk about it if he doesn’t know what to talk about yet.

They work in silence until Katie calls them down for dinner. As they approach the door, Cooper brushes his hand pithily, a silent question asking if they’re okay. Oliver raises his eyebrows before smiling as widely as he can, if only because he knows Cooper will return his expression immediately and he likes looking at his dimples.

 _‘Well,’_ he thinks as he descends the stairs, Cooper in tow already chattering away about how he requires Oliver’s input regarding what coat to add to his upcoming winter wardrobe, _‘fuck.’_

-

“Clear your schedule mi hermano, because it’s national bros day today!” announces Cooper as he sails into the cafeteria seat next to Oliver.

“That doesn’t exist,” he replies, shifting his chair to the right to allocate Cooper some space at their table. His phone vibrates in his pocket; Another text from Gina. Texting her recently has been a bit of a chore akin to exchanging pleasantries with an associate at the office—He reckons he would’ve felt that way regardless of Cooper’s ever-changing influence on his life, she’s just been so… distant, juggling school, work, ballet, it’s as if she forgot she had a boyfriend in her life as well. He supposes he has too.

“It does now! We’ll call it National Oliver and Cooper Bros Day, a holiday all of our own.”

Oliver props his elbow on the table to hide the sudden bout of elation pulsing through his veins from Cooper and diverts his attention instead to the garish, bright orange banner hung at the cafeteria entrance. It’s a Thanksgiving-themed project born from the efforts of avant-garde art teachers and their easily impressionable elementary students, decorated with turkeys and other generic symbols that were likely printed and cropped from the Internet. He figures if he looks at something hideous, it’ll distract him from the blindingly white smile of his best friend to the left.

They’re both works of art in their own right; He never cared much for art but there were always exceptions in life.

*

‘National Oliver and Cooper Bros Day’ turns out to be exactly like any other day they spend together—don’t get him wrong, he isn’t complaining about the luxurious afternoon spent walking into high-end retailers armed with Cooper’s vast amount of wealth. It serves as an efficient motivator of how hard he needs to work to reap this much affluence. Draping himself in Gucci, Cartier, and Chanel courtesy of Cooper (despite the fact that he knows Katie will force him to return all acquired pieces of clothing today) keeps him in a pleasant enough mood; He’s complacent enough to actually pay attention to the other’s ridiculous stories meant to show off his family’s grandeur, though now that he’s more conspicuous about the matter, he notices that his parents are never featured taking part in any events with their son.

He keeps this in mind when they inevitably wind up back at Oliver’s house—it’s like Cooper is magnetically drawn to that dump—and Cooper begins annoying his mom unknowingly. Oliver doesn’t always remember how lonely it probably is with absent parents. He trudges over to the couch, tuning out the lecture Katie launches into about not letting wealth define you.

 _‘As if’_ , he scoffs internally.

“Where do you think you’re going, Oliver?” Katie snaps as soon as he’s stepped into the living room.

“Can’t a guy want to relax from time to time and play video games?” He dangles the limp controller in his hand back and forth, hoping it’s coy enough bait to lure Cooper over.

“Uh uh. You’re home before Taylor which means _you_ get to be on laundry duty!” She smiles in a way that grates his nerves, making him tighten his grip around the controller. “And look, you even brought hired help!”

Cooper swings his head wildly around the living room, inquiring where the help was in a genuinely curious tone.

Oliver and Katie resume their staring contest for a minute; He effectively calls it quits once she begins tapping her nails on the kitchen counter and straightens her jaw, a surefire tell that he'll have hell to pay later if he tries to weasel out of chores now.

“I can’t wait to live above the poverty line,” he shouts deliberately as he marches toward the laundry room so Katie will know the extent of how much he detests living with the people he, unfortunately, must call family.

“At least we have hired help!”

“ _You’re_ the hired help, Coop,” he says pointedly. Annoyedly.

Cooper blinks in astonishment. “Wow, Oliver, you’re so brave. I could never live in these conditions.”

“It’s a sacrifice, I’m aware.” Oliver groans as he unloads half of the contents of the dryer into a basket, passing it off to a clueless Cooper as he retrieves another basket. Curse his family’s obsession with life skills and modesty; What point is there to living life if not to live freely and frivolously? Call him a hedonist but he could never understand why people put themselves through so much extra effort if not for monetary gain and subsequent material gain. Lessons possessed no value in a dollar-centric society anymore, unless they were social in nature.

They take the laundry downstairs—Katie has mysteriously vanished, a note on the counter left in her place (what is this, the 1900s?) explaining that she’s gone to the grocery store and to under no circumstances allow Trip near the kitchen unless Greg and/or Taylor is there to supervise—and fold it in front of the muted television. Cooper’s impressively overenthusiastic about a household task as mundane as doing the laundry but it works out for him as he secretly nudges more articles of clothing that didn’t belong to him in Cooper’s direction.

Although the boy is enthused, he doesn’t have the faintest clue as to how to properly wrap up laundry. He raises an eyebrow at the disaster that he thinks is one of Dad’s work trousers (how does a pant leg even end up inside out like that? It bamboozles him) and quietly resigns himself to his fate of re-folding everything when Cooper’s not looking. They end up taking half an hour at the rate they’re going.

The task is eventually set aside in favor of finally indulging in some much-needed Mario Kart, which admittedly eats into the rest of the day. Oliver is content to take some time off with the other boy, whether he’ll admit to it or not. He hardly notices as the windows bleed golden hues, distracted by how his and Cooper’s shoulders press together until Katie is back from her errands. The rest of the family erratically shuffle into the dining room as she bitches about people she ran into while shopping; To the surprise of no one, only Greg offers his half-assed commentary.

Dinner, as it tends to be, is a disastrous affair of too many voices overlapping one another (Cooper joins in, the traitor) and the constant clattering of silverware—”Crap, my fork dropped again-” “Mom, can I go to Trip’s later-” “Has anyone fed Luther yet?”—serving to make his head spin. He reminds himself he wants to go down in a blaze of glory, something flashy like getting caught embezzling millions in off-shore bank accounts rather than wind up on a Dateline episode for snapping at his family.

He picks at his lackluster pile of mashed potatoes, returning to the present conversation only when Katie asks Cooper if he will be joining them for family movie night. “Those of us whose last name is Otto, movie night is _mandatory_.” She states, glaring at everyone else (particularly Taylor) at the table. Taylor groans dramatically, immediately launching into a futile argument with Katie on whether or not she’d be allowed to skip movie night tonight in favor of going out with Trip (spoiler alert to his dear sister: it’s better to assume more often than not that the answer is no regardless of what’s being asked).

She thankfully lands herself on cleaning duty as a result of her and Katie’s disagreement; Oliver grins as he spreads his uneaten food across his plate as thinly as he can for no other reason than to piss Taylor off. He then follows Cooper back to their place on the couch, snagging the armrest for himself.

“Sodas?” Cooper questions as he squirms in an attempt to get comfortable. He nods his assent, watching listlessly as his father pulls up some beige-toned historical documentary that’s ultimately going to be shot down in favor of the pick of the infamous Katie-Anna-Kat movie duo. He can’t say he blames Greg for trying though, he and Taylor never learn their lessons. It’s what makes this family function at its core; The more his parents are concerned with each other and the two odder kids of the family, the less attention he has on him and the more time he has to focus on his future investment portfolio amongst other… things in his life. Things of the brunette-haired, obscenely rich variety.

Cooper returns with a six-pack, cracking two open for himself and Oliver then offering it to anyone else who wants any. It’s off-putting to Oliver, how often Cooper puts others before himself. He doesn’t act that way on a surface level of understanding, with his perpetual parading of his family’s money and the details of a lavish lifestyle very few people have the chance to lead. It’s in his non-verbal cues, in the smile that he forms when Katie berates him for misbehavior the same way she’d admonish any of her flesh-and-blood children. Basic gratitude for others for no acknowledgment.

It’s odd, Oliver thinks as Cooper rests a languid arm on the top half of the couch, not quite touching Oliver’s shoulders but close enough to radiate body heat. It’s odd how perfectly Cooper fits into the daily Otto hustle and bustle, filling in the blanks of Oliver’s otherwise stressed and checkered existence.

He surveys the room carefully to ensure everyone’s attention is glued to the movie Oliver had been completely spacing out on before he removes his arm from where it had been propped under his chin, tilting his head so that it rested a few centimeters away from the crook of Cooper’s neck. Now that the ball is in the other’s court, so to speak, he waits.

And waits.

But the credits flicker on screen, and Cooper never does quite close that gap aside from the occasional reach to the coffee table he’d do for his soda. As he bids Cooper goodnight at the door with a promise of waking up early for a coffee run tomorrow, he wonders how misplaced his disappointment is. Maybe he should FaceTime Gina tonight.

Or, as he forgoes his pajamas in favor of one of his ballet uniforms and the muted harmonies of classical music, he could channel his feelings into something productive for the future. As any self-made billionaire would do.

-

Cooper calls Oliver one Saturday afternoon, declaring that he’s whisking his best friend away for a grandiose helicopter tour of the city. “Actually, Carlos has to run some errands in the next city over but the views are _muy bonita_.” This translates roughly to _‘holy crap I’m so lonely, please keep me company,’_ in Cooper-speak. Katie would never allow him near the Bradford family helicopter, but what she doesn’t know won’t kill her. There’re a lot of perks being the middle (and not favorite) child—namely, that he can do as he pleases as long as he keeps his grades up.

Spencer would have allowed him to go.

It’s not his first time clambering into the private helicopter, though he doubts he’ll ever tire of it. Oliver wishes desperately that he had a helicopter of his own (and a mansion, and everything else he associates with the good life) but Cooper’s would have to make do in the meantime. He watches below as the tiny dots of houses blur together into a homogenous white blob the higher they go, sparsely interpopulated with the rare specks of forest-green.

Cooper stumbles to a halt beside him, no doubt caught by a patch of turbulence as he latches onto the armrest of the chair Oliver had been resting on. “What did you want to do when we land? I could take you to this ice cream place called Milkcraft, I saw it on a top 10 list.”

“I’ll go wherever you wanna go, man.”

“Dude,” Cooper bites his lip before flopping backward into his own chair. His arm falls on Oliver’s, fingers barely dusting the bony underside of Oliver’s wrist. “Quiero what tú quieres.”

“Hey, that was almost a complete sentence in Spanish! Impressive.”

“Yeah, I’ve been practicing. This Spanish chica I saw an Instagram ad for has been teaching me twice a week,” replies Cooper, absentmindedly rubbing small circles near the corner of Oliver’s wrist. Does the other boy not notice how affectionate he is? Perhaps Cooper does it on purpose.

“Why the sudden interest? Are you impressing a girl?” Oliver reprimands himself for mentioning a girl again; Not _everything_ has to be about romance. He’s been having a downright crisis with the concept for weeks now. Just because he’s distraught over the frequent miscategorization of Cooper and Gina’s significance in his life doesn’t mean Cooper has been having any difficulties.

“Uh,” says Cooper awkwardly. “Something like that.”

-

“You look fantastic.”

This isn’t the first time Cooper has told him that and it won’t be the last. Oliver’s having a harder and harder time tucking away his flustered reactions as the days tick by, however, to the point that he finds himself making permanent eye contact with the wooden floor beneath his feet at 7:30 AM sharp every day, the time when Cooper picks him up for school.

“Thanks.”

He takes a different approach this time around, compelled by a force he would ordinarily scorn. “You look really good too.”

He looks up to meet Cooper’s deer-in-headlights reminiscent gaze and subsequently struggles to contain the small smile threatening to see the light of day at the way Cooper tilts his head like a confused puppy. Unfortunately, Cooper snaps out of his reverie as easily as he’d been entranced and hurriedly whips the front door open, though Oliver locks on to the subtle rose-tint to his cheeks that wasn’t there previously as they shuffle into the other’s ride.

-

Ballet continues to be a reprieve from the daily challenges of life; He’s unsure how much of his passion for it lies in his unabated desire to attend Harvard and how much of it is for his personal enjoyment but either way, ballet serves its purpose well as a distraction.

He and Gina carry on sporadic, shallow conversation before and after class but he’s observed her gravitating towards Andrew with a couple of her girlfriends more intermittently. They haven’t been spending loads of quality time together too; To be frank, he’s seen Cooper three more times this week than her.

“Gina?” Oliver tugs on her arm lightly once class has ended for the day. She pauses mid-conversation with a curly-haired classmate Oliver can’t recall the name of, fixing him with a haughty glare.

“Hm?”

His request to rehearse a tricky bit of his routine with her falls flat on his tongue as he tracks her line of sight to Andrew leaning casually on the barre a solid few meters away from them, engrossed in his own chat with a couple of classmates. “Never mind.”

Oliver initially plans to leave it at that but fate has other plans in store. At first, he believes it to be resentment at Andrew for effortlessly nailing complicated dances better than him and Gina’s obvious admiration for the guy reaching its boiling point when he impulsively rushes out that they need to talk.

Once they’re alone outside, whatever fight he’d summoned from the trenches of his soul dissipate with the frigid winds that undulate around them. Still, he’d dragged them both out there. He needed to do _something_.

“We needed to talk?” Gina questions with an annoyed eyebrow raise.

“I see how you look at Andrew,” replies Oliver, emerging more venom-drenched than he’d intended. He regrets saying anything the moment he’d said it honestly but what’s done is done.

Gina narrows her eyes at him, fists balled at her sides. “What is that supposed to mean?”

He could try to diffuse what he senses is about to evolve into a heated argument but he can’t claim to care. This is the most passionate conversation he’s had with her in two weeks; So be it if the reasoning is negative.

“You know what I mean.”

“Oh for-“ Gina angrily tosses her hands in the air, pacing along an invisible line. “You know what, screw you, Oliver! Get your shit together, I would _never_ cheat on you.” She storms back inside the building, effectively cutting their quarrel short.

Guilt steadily crawls up his spine, nestling deep into each crevice of his being. He’s unable to determine what to concentrate on chiefly; The fact that he _has_ cheated on her (and has been _somewhat_ emotionally cheating on her) or the fact that she didn’t deny his insinuations regarding Andrew. She was insanely quick to assume he’d meant cheating was part of the equation and more correct than she knew.

In a daze, he slumps down against the cold brick and numbly dials Cooper’s number. He would have to text Katie shortly to let her know not to come pick him up from dance class today but he’d deal with that issue in due course.

 _‘Come on,’_ he thinks impatiently, growing increasingly anxious as the monotonous ringing of his cell phone doesn’t cease.

“Hello?” Cooper, at long last, answers in an unusually gravelly voice on the other end. He can picture Cooper picking up somewhere within the vast expanse of his estate, maybe holed up in his movie theatre or lounging on an exorbitantly priced couch, completely unaware of Oliver’s rapid onset of emotional turmoil.

“Hey,” sighs Oliver heavily. “Can you pick me up?”

“Oh, hi. Yeah, yeah sure. Send me your location.” he hears Cooper sniffle and drowsily clear his throat—had he woken him up from a nap? Ostensibly, he should apologize. “Everything all right there, esé?”

“Yep. See you soon.”

*

Everything is indisputably _not_ all right the moment he scrabbles into the backseat of one of Cooper’s limos and gets an eyeful of his somnolent best friend. His heart lurches into his throat; The sight of him sparks an endless chant of Gina hissing at him to get his shit together.

“Okay if we go to yours? I already told my mom I wouldn’t be back for a while, she needs part of the estate cleared out for ‘high profile guests’ anyways.”

Oliver nods, blinking briskly at a gum wrapper on the floor to stem the humiliating trickle of tears he’s currently fostering. His years of maintaining a stoic demeanor have luckily paid off, as nothing embarrassing emerges to fruition. Cooper punctuates the otherwise speechless commute to Oliver’s house with a recap of what interesting affairs his family were involved with today, something about day trading and a guy Cooper’s dad had labeled a fraud. He would have loved to provide his ecstatic input but as his emotional status stands, he can’t ensure whether the next thing out of his mouth will be a semi-coherent sentence or a dry sob.

The driver drops them off at a blessedly empty household—save for his dad who, Oliver is willing to bet, is sealed away in his office—and Cooper trails behind him obediently.

“Are you sure you’re okay? You love the stock market dude, not like you to be so quiet,” says Cooper uneasily as soon as they’ve entered Oliver’s bedroom. He takes a seat on Oliver’s desk chair, supporting his chin with the palms of his hands as he leans forward.

“Mhm,” affirms Oliver as he simultaneously chokes on what has to be the _ugliest_ snivel known to man.

“Oh no,” is all Cooper rushes out before Oliver presses his own palms to his eyes and hunches over, hoping the pressure will alleviate the pin pricking sensation he thought he’d successfully buried in the car. He’s distantly aware of the bittersweet, familiar scent of pine cologne and a warm body cuddling up to him. Before he can stop himself, he unleashes a half-dry-heave, half-sob, attempting desperately to cling to the soft shushing sounds Cooper whispers in the shell of his ear.

Oliver was not entirely sure why he was so deeply disturbed by his abrupt talk with Gina incipiently but as Cooper soldiers on caring for him, murmuring soft words of affirmation to him, he thinks he understands fully now. He wants everything from Cooper, much more than Cooper would ever be willing to give. It’s a repressed truth he’s been internally debating for weeks on end, but as he goes limp in Cooper’s grip, he realizes, in a sobering moment of clarity, how badly he wants to kiss him. Just to kiss him without the pretense of practicing for future significant others Oliver wishes would never manifest. To have Cooper kiss him back because he wants to. It’s an aggregate of emotions he never intended to process.

“When you wanna talk about it, ‘m always here for you, cuate.”

“Cooper,” rasps Oliver. He twists to his left, prompting Cooper’s head to lift from its place half-tilted on his headboard. Before he could change his mind, he frenziedly tips forward and kisses Cooper harshly. He’s only there for no longer than three seconds but Cooper is as responsive as a brick wall; The whole moment is ranked number two in his list of the three most painful seconds he’s had the pleasure of enduring in his life. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

-

“Our female scholarship recipient is … Gina Tuscadero!”

Gina is positively glowing as she bestows upon the audience a blindingly white grin. Her mood is so infectious, Oliver can’t help but grin as well, basking in the subsequent raucous applause. A tendril of fear snakes up his spine at the notion that the possibility of him attending boarding school ( _with Gina of all people in the world_ , his mind helpfully supplies) is about to manifest into reality but he swallows it down, eager to hear his name fall from the announcer’s lips.

Cooper catches his eye from where he’s seated in the audience, flashing him a supportive thumbs up and mouthing _‘you got this’_. He doesn’t know what it is about Cooper but he has a tendency to stand out from a crowd. It could be the family status he shoulders, the affluent symbols he flaunts on his body constantly, or maybe it’s just Cooper plain and simple. Regardless, Oliver could single him out from any size of a crowd; That boy could draw anyone in.

“Our male scholarship winner is… Andrew Vandevorde!”

Oliver’s placid grin drops instantly as the announcer’s words settle into his bones, icy and pointed. God how he despises that name. His brain screams obscenities at him, _‘never enough’_ bouncing around his skull, but his feet never receive the memo that he needs to escape. With bleary eyes, he watches as the audience cheers for Andrew—even Gina is clapping quietly for him, he notes sourly, dimmed awe present beneath the layer of her neutral expression.

He spends the rest of that afternoon in a post-dream-shattering haze, responding politely to the customary apologies he receives in lieu of receiving the actual scholarship. His vision board at home clouds his mind; It was supposed to be a clean, clear-cut path to success. He was supposed to befriend Cooper (check, check, and check far beyond that), get straight A’s (check), open a brokerage account, and start investing (currently a work in progress but he’d break his dad before he’s 18, he’s confident), win that ballet scholarship and go to boarding school so Harvard could see his dedication, to be continued. It’s not a chronological timeline by any means but it is, _was_ still roughly defined in his head. Now he’d have to return home, face his failures head-on, and rethink his options—not that he could think of any realistic ones, he’d placed a lot of time and faith in winning that stupid scholarship.

“Is it okay if I borrow him for a few minutes, mom?” Cooper asks faintly in the background. It’s hard to hear him over the thunderous rush of blood hammering away at his eardrums. The marbled grey of the surrounding buildings and dull sky coalesce into an ugly shade of grey, much like his attitude. The panic is seriously starting to set in at the repeated thoughts of his doomed future; Ferraris and Teslas replaced by Subarus and, god forbid, Hondas, renting a studio apartment by his lonesome, Cooper leaving him because he’s simply not _enough_ for him.

“-Oliver! Ollie?”

Oliver blinks back to reality, blindsided by the neon rays of sunlight encircling loose strands of Cooper’s hair. His first and foremost thought: _‘I’ve just seen an angel.’_ His second and far more distressing thought: _‘I’m gonna lose him too.’_

“What am I gonna do,” he states flatly. The question poised seems unanswerable, beyond Cooper’s means of measure. Cooper is mute as he herds Oliver into a tight hug, the sort that grounds him, lets him regain access to the rational part of his brain again. He breathes in a soothing mix of cashmere and cologne as he buries his hands in the fabric of Cooper’s sweater, slipping his eyes shut in shame when he feels Cooper plant a feather-light kiss to the top of his head.

“You’re going to be okay. You’re the smartest guy I know, you’ll find something else. And I’ll be with you every step of the way,” he coos.

Oliver releases another dreary sigh. Cooper is right, ballet isn’t the only subversive art form on Earth.

Cooper tacks on a cheerier “best bros forever” before Oliver musters up the strength to say anything, sending him careening to the dismal depths of his earlier mood.

He supposes he should listen to his advice to himself about how he should take what he can get, he’s fortuitous to have savored this much of Cooper’s attention on him. It’s not enough. It’s never _going_ to be enough, so Oliver believes whatever neurochemicals are responsible for this torture better get their act together before he cements himself a permanent place in the Lonely Hearts Club.

With a heavy heart, he untangles himself from Cooper’s grip and resigns himself to his painful course of action—that is, confronting Gina. “Thanks Coop, best friends forever.” A nervous glance to the cracked pavement beneath them. “I-I need to talk to Gina now.”

“Oh,” says Cooper in a tone Oliver is unable to place, creasing his forehead ever so slightly. “Good luck, amigo.”

*

Oliver locates Gina near the outskirts of the ceremony, sipping on an iced coffee as she idly loiters by a cluster of indigo balloons. She’s conveniently alone, sealing this moment as his only chance for a civil conversation. With his shoulders squared and his jaw clenched tightly, he makes his move.

“Oliver.” Gina greets him haughtily, tossing her hair over her shoulder.

“Listen…” He deflates despite the cautious stance of his girlfriend. Oliver doesn’t seek a heated argument with her but he thinks he’s entitled to information about her feelings about winning their coveted scholarship at the bare minimum. “I'm sorry I messed this up for us. And I’m sorry for freaking out on you the other day, it was uncalled for.”

She softens, adorning the half-smile Oliver had fallen for weeks ago. The butterflies he used to nurture in his stomach feel as though they existed eons ago, in a lost passage of time. Weeks feel like years. “Well, I blew things out of proportion too, so forgive and forget. There's something else I need to tell you though.”

Somehow, Oliver is the most in-sync with her he’s ever been, and it’s in the foreshadowing of their breakup. He hasn’t watched a lot of romantic movies in his lifetime but he can’t help but ponder if there was a degree of dramatic irony to their current positions.

“You’re taking the ballet scholarship.”

“I’m takin- how’d you guess?”

Oliver shrugs and kicks a minuscule pebble into the street. The problem with people is that their tells are often too obvious, and Gina is no exception now. He’d known the very microsecond Gina was pronounced the female scholarship winner that she would latch on to the opportunity.

“I had a hunch is all.”

“It’s funny,” she chuckles, staring up at the sky. “I had a speech planned out about how if our roles were reversed, you’d do the same thing, and how I was going to handle seeing you upset. Wasn’t sure if I’d be up for the task.”

Cooper was.

He joins her in stargazing; The clear expanse of blue quells any lingering traces of anxiety in him, filling him with the meager scraps of peace he’s longed for all day. Existing side by side with her for unofficially the last time adds a bittersweet tint to the otherwise upbeat demeanor of their surroundings but it is unavoidable. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he apologizes again for lack of a more interesting response.

“And since I’m accepting the scholarship…” she trails off. The blanks are easy enough to color in, a straightforward journey from Destination A to Destination B.

“...we’re breaking up,” he finishes.

Gina drags him into an innocent kiss. He tastes the sweet caramel notes of her drink, the waft of bubblegum she perpetually chews, and the inevitable melancholy of growing apart. The burden of guilt he’s lugged around for weeks dissipates like the autumn leaves from tree branches, and he feels, for the first time in a long time, that his future will resolve itself.

“Goodbye Oliver.”

*

“How did your talk with Gina go?” Cooper asks. They laze around in the Ottos’ backyard, content to soak in the rays of the setting sun with their sodas in hand. So much has happened today; It’s nice to have a tangible reminder that Cooper is, in fact, not going to leave him. He’d been idiotic to assume so at the height of his panic attack.

“We uh,” he squints at a house plant in their vicinity, giving it a once-over to ensure he hid the cracks in its vase well enough. “We broke up.”

“Ouch. That’s rough, compadre.”

“It was amicable though. When has long distance ever worked out?” _‘I’m into someone else,’_ goes unsaid.

“Hm, true. Still sucks though,” says Cooper as he leans over to swipe Oliver’s beverage for no reason other than to be a menace. “But as long as you’re happy.”

“I am,” says Oliver definitively. “I am.”

-

Two weeks after Gina leaves for Deervale, his vision board sustains its scattered display of glue stains from ripping off all ballet related images and the daunting emptiness of a void meant to be filled. He’s racked his brain and scoured the internet daily for a fresh concept to implement but his physical and mental well remain blocked, empty like the cold wasteland outdoors.

It’s a shame that Cooper stays his same, lovable, charming self because he desires a scapegoat to toss all his problems onto _badly_ but as it turns out, it is impossible to create and hold a grudge against Cooper. Tendencies to drive himself crazy the longer he tiptoes around the _‘will-he-won’t-he’_ portion of his relationship with the other boy pepper his thoughts every now and then but he’s starting to suspect that it’s forming into something that will soon be unmanageable.

Oliver is a patient person at heart, but he’s also a human being capable of reaching certain limits. That’s exactly what he rehearses mentally the second time he kisses Cooper amidst a sea of uncertainty for his future and the satisfaction of scratching an itch that had bothered him all afternoon.

Cooper takes his sweet time to indicate that he’s aware Oliver even kissed him at all but as soon as it clicks, he matches his pace with all the grace of a baby deer fumbling for its footing.

“Jesus, hold on,” utters Cooper as he aligns his hands with Oliver’s hips, gently walking them to Oliver’s bed. He hoists Oliver onto his lap, catching him momentarily by surprise but it isn’t unwelcome by any means. Their lips are reconnected under a steadier foundation; Now that he’s kissing Cooper as a single man, he wonders what else he can suggest they do under the guise of practice. If that’s the only way he’d interact with Cooper this intimately, so be it. It’s better to take the long road home than to not arrive at all.

Blueberry chapstick. Oliver thinks that’s what he detects on Cooper’s lips; He hadn’t known the other boy had suddenly picked up an interest in self-care. It does taste fantastic, although Cooper could likely kiss him without all the fanfare of moisturized lips and impossibly soft hair—he’d enjoy himself all the same.

He breaks the kiss to inhale deeply, eyes flickering open of their own accord.

“What’s all this about, amigo?”

Oliver shakes his head, opting to lean back in in lieu of an answer. They don’t end up talking about it, although it’s not like Oliver wants to. Cooper ends the “practice session” prematurely anyway, citing that he needs to make an appearance at some function to appease a shallow family neither of them cared about.

Still, as Cooper is rushing to leave, he can’t help but note the wide-eyed glances and the way they brush hands as he escorts him to the door.

“Was that Cooper? Is that little bastard of yours finally going back to his own house for dinner?” Katie questions from the kitchen. He props a lazy arm on the counter as he swipes an apple she’s in the process of slicing, never once lifting his gaze from the front door.

-

“No way! I thought this game wasn’t out for weeks!” exclaims Trip. Somehow, Taylor and Trip had wormed their way into Oliver and Cooper’s otherwise idyllic afternoon. Trip brought with him an air of excitement if anything else. Maybe some comedy too, given how ceaselessly amazed he is by the smallest of things.

“Like I’ve been saying, bros, the Bradford name has its perks,” says Cooper smugly. The advantages of having a rich best friend were never-ending it seems; He remembers when Cooper first brandished a Nintendo Switch to him months before its release, and before that, a rendition of some limited edition Pokémon cartridge. They’d been too scared to boot the system up in fear of a corrupted file but again, Cooper is always ahead of the game.

“I can’t wait to play! Can we?” Trip gestures between him and his equally excited girlfriend, eyeing the controllers set on the table hungrily.

Cooper and Oliver exchange a series of glances, littered with eyebrow raises and incredulous hand waving.

_‘Let them play?’_

_‘No way dude, we barely even played yet.’_

_‘We have all the time in the world to play.’_

That silent conversation is how Oliver ultimately ends up smushed on his family’s already embarrassingly small couch, Taylor and Trip hollering and whooping next to them as they race each other in the latest edition of Mario Kart.

Cooper’s hand somehow snakes its way into Oliver’s though, and keeps winding back to Oliver’s palm while the other two are engrossed by the game; He figures it’s the little victories that count.

-

Dressing up for special occasions, although the definition of ‘special’ is a contested one in the Otto household, has forever remained one of Oliver’s favorite pastimes. When he looks put together, he feels almost like his old self, the one that had the straightforward dance-his-way-into-Harvard plan and that didn’t constantly wrangle his wandering thoughts about Cooper back.

When he suggested to Cooper the notion of sneaking out of the house in favor of attending a party, his first thought was how proud he’d be to rebel for once against the expectations his parents have of him. As the time to leave crept closer, however, his thoughts are leaning more towards the _‘oh god, why did I agree to this, I’m not the problem child’_ category. He picks at the collar of his pressed shirt, delivered courtesy of Cooper, as he stares down the car in front of him. He couldn’t believe he insisted to Cooper he’d be able to drive—what reason was there for impressing the other boy if they’re both discovered dead in a ditch somewhere on account of Oliver’s subpar driving skills?

His internal monologue is interrupted by the sound of Cooper slamming the backseat car door behind him, giving him two thumbs up once he’s inside. Oliver carries that small sense of relief with him into the car, jamming the keys into the ignition harshly. He’s so nervous that it takes him three tries to start the engine but once he’s carefully eased them both down the driveway, it’s smooth sailing all the way to the party.

“Dude, this is weird. Why aren’t you in the front with me?” He questions as he signals a right turn or at least what he thinks signals a right turn. It’s a little lonely all by himself in the front, with only his shot nerves at the prospect of an accidental crash for company.

“Because I’ve never sat in the front, and I’m never _gonna_ sit in the front.” He watches Cooper clap his hands in the rearview mirror and point forward. “The Hill, chop chop!”

All conversation from that point on halts as Cooper obnoxiously belts out the words to some cheesy pop song he put on the aux cord, stopping every so often to relay directions from Siri. Thankfully, they arrive in one piece. Oliver releases his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel and sighs deeply.

“Well done, man. You were a natural out there,” says Cooper as he exits the vehicle. Oliver yanks the parking brake up and steps out into the cool night breeze, letting the faint sound of partygoers and music wash over him as Cooper joins his side. “Dude, I think those two girls are checking us out.”

He follows Cooper’s line of sight to two long-legged, admittedly beautiful girls positioned between a couple of parked cars, tittering excitedly to one another. The girl on the right holds his gaze briefly before she ducks her head shyly, cupping her hand around her companion’s ear as she whispers inaudibly to her.

Before he can gather his bearings, the two girls are striding over to them, bringing with them a sickly scent of floral perfume and a foreboding click of wedges on cracked pavement. “Did you guys drive here yourselves?” says the shorter one of the two.

Cooper and Oliver share a panicked glance between them, though Cooper recovers much quicker than he does as he retorts a haughty, “of course we did!”

“You have a license?”

“No ma’am,” replies Oliver. “I’m uh, not afraid of getting into a little trouble.” If anyone notices his voice wavering, they don’t say so.

“Is that so?” The taller girl asks. Cue an awkward silence wherein Oliver flounders for a suave response and Cooper offers zero help whatsoever. He’s preoccupied with rocking back on his heels and smiling too widely. Miraculously, they manage to obtain the girls’ numbers and an extended invitation to meet them inside the party. One of the girls - Brie - had taken the liberty of adding a smattering of heart emojis beside her name in his contacts; He’d have thought the gesture to be endearing if not a bit forward under circumstances where he _isn’t_ harboring a crush on his best friend.

“So,” Oliver starts, turning sideways to face his best friend. “She’s cute. Are you going to text her? Call her?”

“Charlotte? I mean… I could. How about that other chica?”

Is that what the other girl’s name is? It sounds stuffy, too pretentious. Cooper and Charlotte, Charlotte and Cooper. He dismally admits that their names do meld nicely together.

“I don’t know. If you’re going to text her, then I’ll text the other girl,” he replies. It’s a baseless promise—getting involved with someone he didn’t particularly care about is not on his agenda. He had assumed Cooper felt the same as him but when had he ever gauged Cooper’s feelings accurately before?

“Why bother texting them when we can see them right now?” With that said, Cooper tugs lightly on Oliver’s bicep, marching them both towards the party. The house hosting is not as elaborately decorated as the Halloween party they’d attended but it’s still packed to the brim with people mingling indoors, outdoors, in cars—there didn’t seem to be a reprieve from constant social interaction.

When he had contemplated his reasons for attending this party earlier, it had boiled down to his desire to waste the night away with Cooper and enjoy being a dumb teenager (he’s sure he’s lacking some required experience in that department). The introduction of Brie and Charlotte threw him off his game more than he’d like to confess. For one, he doesn’t have the energy necessary to pretend that he wants someone else when the person he wants is _literally_ next to him.

“Charlotte!” Cooper shouts. She perks up from where she’s seated on a kitchen countertop beside Brie, lazily waving the two of them over. Oliver swallows the bitter taste of bile down, opting to glare at a nearby picture frame so he wouldn’t have to witness Cooper’s eyes lighting up in sight of someone who isn’t him.

“You guys found us!” She giggles, sloshing the contents of a red solo cup around as she rakes a hungry gaze up and down Cooper’s form. Oliver would know; He’s caught himself adorning that same expression regarding Cooper. The pungent smell of alcohol and the fruity concoctions it’s mixed with makes him crinkle his nose in disgust—he glances at Cooper for support to find him already looking back.

“What’s that?” asks Cooper, stepping away from Oliver to crowd Charlotte’s space. He bends down and takes a whiff, gags, and promptly backs up. “Never mind, I want _no_ part in that.”

Charlotte lets loose another airy laugh, no doubt exacerbated by her drink. Oliver hides his clenched fist behind his back. Coming to this party had been a giant mistake. Charlotte and Brie are both incredibly pretty, he isn’t blind, and it’s a marvel that they’d marked Cooper and Oliver charming enough to confer an invitation to kick back with them. Still, as the never-ending stream of _‘Cooper and Charlotte, Charlotte and Cooper’_ permeates his thought process, he wonders what he’s going to do. _If_ he should do anything.

“Are you all right?” Someone asks. It takes him a second to realize Brie is speaking to him, concern plastered on her face. Whatever conversation Charlotte and Cooper had started falls flat as they all turn their attention to him. When did Cooper get so close to her again?

“Yeah, sorry, just thinking about where I left the car.” It’s a paltry excuse even to himself but the group buys it. Brie continues to talk to him, something about the general atmosphere of the party and drinks but he can’t bring himself to devote all his attention to her when he notices Cooper gradually shifting nearer Charlotte.

“Do you drink?” Brie questions. She motions to an open bottle of vodka on the lower end of the kitchen counter.

“No…” Oliver replies. In all honesty, he’d love to try it. Alcohol is supposed to loosen one up if he recalled correctly—and maybe it would’ve gotten his mind off of Cooper and his _non-stop flirting_ with Charlotte. Unfortunately, he had pigeonholed himself into being the designated driver. He confesses all of this to Brie (minus the parts about Cooper, of course) who takes his explanation with an expectant nod.

“More for me then!” She smiles as she pours herself a shot and swiftly tosses it back with the precision of someone who had clearly done this before. She emits a small sound of disgust as she pours another one for Charlotte, who accepts it with a crooked smirk. “How about you?” She points to Cooper.

“Me?” Cooper snorts derisively. “I’ll pass, wouldn’t want to leave poor Oliver here to take care of me.”

_‘I would if you asked.’_

“You guys mind if we head somewhere else for a little while? I’d like to show him something,” says Charlotte. It’s not a question, more so a warning in Oliver’s humble opinion as Charlotte leads Cooper out of the room and out of earshot. It didn’t take a genius to calculate what Charlotte intended to do with Cooper but acknowledging her scheme only worsens the icy pit in his stomach. Charlotte and Cooper, Cooper and Charlotte. Cooper and Oliver didn’t quite have the same ring to it. Never would.

“I’m sorry,” he finds himself saying through the haze of his racing thoughts. “I think I need to go outside.”

Brie tilts her head curiously but permits him to exit the room without any intrusive comments. “Text me when you’re feeling better!” She calls after him as he rounds a corner, panting heavily. He needs to _leave_ , urgently. He hadn’t realized exactly how big of a mistake he’d made in sneaking out to this party—if he had just fought back against his internal wishes to rebel or whatever it is he believes he’s doing, he wouldn’t be in this situation. He would not have met Brie, Cooper would not have met Charlotte, and he could have pretended in ignorant bliss that Cooper meant every kiss initiated between them.

Instead, he’s alone on a Friday night unwillingly armed with the knowledge that Cooper is living it up with Charlotte elsewhere in the house.

The silvery sheet of stars above him is a stark contrast to Oliver’s grey mood, twinkling menacingly at him. He drags a hand up his face, holding back the miserable sigh that so desperately wanted to escape his lips. His watch indicates that it’s nearly ten o’clock—would leaving an hour after arriving at this godforsaken party be considered rude in Westport? His get-rich-quick books never strictly defined the finer details of social niceties—his parents never were much help either. The complete opposite, really.

Oliver stands up, dusting off the general layer of grime accumulated on the back of his pants, and texts Brie a terse apology (something he’s done an uncharacteristic amount of tonight) alongside a promise to contact her later. Taking a grounding breath, he dials Cooper’s number.

“Hate to interrupt your date but I want to get out of here soon,” he rushes out as soon as the call connects.

“Wait what? We’re leaving?” A high-pitched whine of protest from the background has him gritting his teeth.

“If you want a ride, then yeah,” says Oliver jaggedly. Cooper is nonvocal amidst the volume of merriment and migraine-inducing pop music crackling through the tinny speakers on his phone.

“Okay. See you in a minute,” he finally responds and hangs up. Oliver examines his phone as it gradually fades to black with an ill-timed sense of regret—he should have let Cooper get to know Charlotte better. He’s a horrid best friend.

He pinpoints that sensation of regret, anger, and the general lack of regard for any girl who bothers to look at Cooper a second too long and strangles it as he paces towards the parked car. Someone drunkenly shouts something at him from across the driveway, lost to the backdrop of static in his brain. As soon as he mashes the unlock button on the car keys, he swings himself inside and adjusts the mirrors; Anything to keep his hands preoccupied and his mind off of how Cooper’s probably saying goodbye to Charlotte.

Brie hasn’t replied to him, as he suspected. She’s likely living it up with Charlotte, assuming she’d found her path back to her friend. Or perhaps she’d seen his text and was disregarding it (the preferable outcome, if he’s being honest with himself). She really was a nice girl, and stunningly gorgeous; In another lifetime, he could see himself falling for the Westport glamor she effortlessly embodies. In this lifetime, he glares at her contact before impulsively deleting the number.

“Did you get sick?” asks Cooper as he slides into the backseat, gently closing the car door behind him. Oliver jumps, whipping his head around at the intrusion. “Because if you did, you have to tell me now, I’m calling a ride if you’re drunk.”

“No, I’m not-” Oliver huffs in frustration. “I didn’t drink anything.”

Cooper clears his throat, plainly waiting for an elaboration Oliver had no interest in voicing aloud.

He turns the radio on to [a melancholic melody](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNQ5MsWUc20) he vaguely recognizes hearing in a department store somewhere, shooting the two of them on the course back to the Otto household.

“What’s up with you?” asks an irate Cooper. Oliver wrenches the volume knob higher.

“Did you have a good time?” retorts Oliver once he calms down enough to speak. The singer’s gentle crooning about love only serves to irritate him further.

“I was starting to, I guess. Weren’t you?”

“If you say so.”

“Wh- that doesn’t even make sense!” Cooper protests, crossing his arms in indignation. Oliver takes a sharp right, narrowly avoiding scraping a tire rim on the curb.

“Okay,” says Oliver. “Maybe I would have had a better time if the person I came with acted like I existed for more than five minutes.”

There’s a long, blundering pause as Oliver peers into the murky shadows ahead of him, concentratedly gnawing at his bottom lip.

“That’s not- you were-” starts Cooper weakly. Whatever else he had been attempting to say is lost to the tense atmosphere of the car. The Otto household looms on the near horizon, a welcome sight for once in his life. “I’m not _trying_ to stay single forever, dude.” Cooper finally pipes up.

Oliver, caught off guard by Cooper speaking and the calculated way he spat that out, nicks the metal underframe of one of the car’s tires on the curb as he pulls into the driveway. The sickening scrape of metal on concrete unleashes a wave of panic within the confines of his chest, heart rate accelerating as he stares disbelievingly at the remaining expanse of the driveway.

“Oh my god,” says Oliver at the same time Cooper utters a remark about that noise not resembling the sound of someone who successfully managed to park a car. He jumps out to assess the damages in the dim luster of the moon above; Thankfully, the scratches aren’t _immediately_ noticeable. He has no experience in repairing a car, however; It isn’t in the same ballpark as repairing a cheap vase from Goodwill his mother once tried to pass off as a vintage heirloom.

Cooper joins him, letting out a sympathetic hiss once he catches sight of Oliver’s mistake. “Wow, mom’s gonna kill us.”

“She’s not your mom,” he retorts automatically. Any further arguments are shelved at the arrival of Taylor approaching from the doorway, blinking blearily as she futilely hugs herself for warmth. Anna-Kat slinks into the scene wordlessly because why not deal with only one nosy sibling when you can get the two-for-one special? His misplaced anger at Cooper is temporarily forgotten as he shuffles closer to the other boy under the curious scrutiny of his sisters.

“What did you guys do?” Taylor asks slowly once it becomes apparent Oliver and Cooper aren’t rushing to explain themselves.

“I took dad’s car out and-” Oliver halts, bracing himself for the worst. “I didn’t crash it! I only sort of scraped it… a little… in my defense, mom and dad expect this type of shit to happen every time they leave the house.”

“Maybe from me but this isn’t you!”

“It’s fine, Cooper can buy a new car and get it delivered before they’re back home, yeah?” He nudges Cooper, praying that he’ll play along with his hare-brained scheme. Cooper nods with the enthusiasm of a hostage forced at gunpoint.

“Dad had an allergy attack, they’re on their way home right now actually,” says Taylor. She smirks at them as she cocks her hip to the right, accepting her role as an overbearing older sister all too naturally. The _‘uh oh, someone’s in trouble and it’s not me’_ expression plastered on Anna-Kat’s face behind her makes him want to rip his hair out.

“Ugh, come on,” says Oliver as he takes ahold of Cooper’s bicep, yanking him over to an assortment of broken sticks scattered around the ground of their fence. “The longer we can hide it, the longer I have to think of how I can blame this on Taylor,” he whispers so she doesn’t hear.

The peanut gallery traipses back indoors, though Oliver is well-aware of two pairs of eyes following his and Cooper’s every movement through the dining room window.

“By the way,” Cooper starts as he half-heartedly punts a branch to Oliver, who crouches and begins framing the scene of Taylor accidentally running into and mauling an imaginary bush, “maybe not the best time to bring up again but you didn’t _exactly_ tell me why you were so pissed.” He squats down to Oliver’s level, eyeing Oliver’s shoddy creation with disdain.

“I don’t want to tell you why.” He eventually settles on saying. It’s cryptic enough to not reveal any further information and just vague enough to account for the sad inflection he knows he couldn’t block from his voice. The stick he’s toying with is deposited carelessly on top of the small pile he’s amassed as Cooper lays a flat, insistent palm on his kneecap.

It’s 10:29 PM, hidden in the shadows of Mr. Otto’s properly dinged car when Cooper kisses him as if he were made of glass. He kisses like they have all the time to do so, like they aren’t two dumb kids afraid to face the consequences of rebellion.

Cooper leans back, nearly losing his balance as he windmills his arms for a split second. Oliver is helpless to stop the gradual smile spreading across his features, his pile of sticks forgotten.

“Is that why?” asks Cooper in a hushed whisper.

“It’s not about practice anymore, is it?”

“Hasn’t been for a long time, amor,” is all Oliver hears before a sudden flash of high-beams interrupts the duo. They unfortunately belong to his parents, who bound out of the car with such urgency Oliver would have assumed the house was on fire.

“What’s going on here?!” shouts Katie. He scrambles to shield the ugly mark on the tire he’d attempted to cover from the world, knocking his forehead against Cooper’s in the process. _‘Ow,’_ he thinks as she marches up to them, Greg tipping his head inquisitively at the sight of the other two Otto children huddled around a window.

“Mrs. O, can I take your son on a date?” Cooper asks nonchalantly. Oliver envies his ability to ignore virtually any situation at hand, it must be nice to live so carefreely.

“I’m sorry, _what_?” She practically screeches in response.

“You haven’t taken him out already? Haven’t you guys been together for months?” questions Greg.

“I just have a feeling this one’s gonna be special,” says Cooper, sending a sly wink to Oliver. For a fleeting instant, Oliver forgets the obscene amount of trouble he’s going to be in shortly. He thinks he understands now what people mean by living in the moment because even as he crouches in a position that’s been causing his thigh to cramp for the past few minutes, allowing the obscenities that fly from Katie’s mouth once she figures out what Oliver did to pour over him, he can’t name any place he’d rather be.


End file.
